Anguished families wait for news of their loved ones victims of fire at migrant facility in Mexico

Record ID: 1717509

  • Title: Anguished families wait for news of their loved ones victims of fire at migrant facility in Mexico
  • Date: 28th March 2023
  • Summary: CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO (MARCH 28, 2023) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) AMBULANCES AND OFFICIALS OUTSIDE NATIONAL MIGRATION INSTITUTE (INM) BUILDING VARIOUS OF FORENSIC TEAM OUTSIDE BUILDING AND BODIES OF MIGRANTS COVERED WITH THERMAL BLANKETS LYING ON GROUND FORENSIC VEHICLE FORENSIC TEAM OUTSIDE BUILDING AND BODIES OF MIGRANTS COVERED WITH THERMAL BLANKETS LYING ON GROUND (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VENEZUELA MIGRANT WHO LOOKS FOR HIS WIFE, EMILIO JOSE, SAYING: "Nobody tells me anything about her. I don't know what is going to happen. I ask, and they give us a rude answer or don't give us any information. I want to know what is happening because I worry about my family. I want to know what is going to happen to her. Are they going to deport them? Before the fire, you would ask for information, and they wouldn't tell you anything and we are worried about our family. Even if we are illegal or undocumented, we are human beings who feel. Look at what happened; some people are injured and are suffering the consequences of what happened." FORENSIC TEAM OUTSIDE BUILDING AND BODIES OF MIGRANTS COVERED WITH THERMAL BLANKETS LYING ON GROUND
  • Embargoed: 11th April 2023 15:30
  • Keywords: Ciudad Juarez Mexican President Lopez Obrador Mexico Migrants fire
  • Location: CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
  • City: CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: Disaster/Accidents,Fires,South America / Central America,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA001094028032023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Relatives of fire victims at a migrant holding centre in Ciudad Juarez in northern Mexico waited anxiously for news of their loved ones after the deadly blaze claimed 39 migrants on Monday (March 27).
    Venezuelan migrant Emilio Jose, 23, waited outside the building looking for his wife Jennifer, who was detained by officers from the Mexican national migrant institution on Monday afternoon.
    Emilio told Reuters that when the fire started, all the women who were detained in the detention centre were removed from the building but he does not know where they were taken to.
    "We are worried about our family. Even if we are illegal or undocumented, we are human beings who feel," he said.
    Reuters video showed bodies laid out on the ground, covered in thermal blankets behind a yellow security cordon, surrounded by emergency vehicles.
    The fire had been extinguished.
    At least 39 migrants from Central and South America died after a fire broke out late on Monday at a migrant holding center in the Mexican northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, apparently caused by a protest over deportations, officials said on Tuesday (March 28).
    Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said authorities believed the blaze in the city opposite El Paso, Texas broke out after some migrants set fire to mattresses in protest after discovering they would be deported.
    "They didn't think that would cause this terrible tragedy," Lopez Obrador told a news conference, noting that most migrants at the facility were from Central America and Venezuela.
    Twenty-eight of the dead at the center were Guatemalans, Guatemala's national migration institute said.
    A spokesperson for Guatemala's foreign ministry said Mexican officials had informed them that some Venezuelans at the center had set mattresses alight.
    There were 68 adult men from Central and South America staying at the facility in the city opposite El Paso, Texas, Mexico's National Migration Institute (INM) said.
    Twenty-nine of them were injured in the blaze and taken to four hospitals in the area, the INM said in a statement.
    A Honduras foreign ministry official said there had been 13 Hondurans at the center but did not yet know if any of them were among the dead.
    The fire, one of the most lethal to hit the country in years, occurred as the U.S. and Mexico are battling to cope with record levels of border crossings at their shared frontier.
    (Production: Jose Luis Gonzalez, Manuel Carrillo, Liamar Ramos)
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